Since 1926, the Department of Linguistics at the University of Chicago has been at the center of the development of the field, counting among its faculty linguists of the first rank such as Sapir and Bloomfield. It is theory-oriented with a deep empirical interest in languages. One of its outstanding characteristics is its commitment to a wide range of approaches to the study of language. Interdisciplinary, interdepartmental study is encouraged, and students regularly work with faculty in several other departments. Students are expected to become active researchers as soon as possible after their arrival here. Many students come with strong undergraduate training in linguistics, or with a Master’s degree; others come with strong training in fields such as philosophy, mathematics, or a particular language or language group. The faculty are involved in synchronic and diachronic research on languages from around the world. These varied interests are reflected in the topics of the dissertations that have been written in the Department.

Program

The graduate program in linguistics leading to the PhD degree is intended to be completed in five years. The University of Chicago operates on the quarter system. Graduate students normally register for three courses per quarter, three quarters per year. They generally take three to four years of coursework.

In the first two years, students take eight foundational courses chosen from a selection of thirteen available options. Six of these eight classes must be completed during the student’s first year in the program.

In addition to these foundational courses, students must also take a methods course and three additional graduate-level courses in linguistics.

In years two and three, when students are writing qualifying papers, they must also take the Research Seminar.

A large proportion of courses offered in the Linguistics Department are advanced courses that are open to all students. The topics of these courses change from year to year, in reflection of the ongoing research interests of both faculty and graduate students, and cover areas of current interest in the field at large. Students are also free to take courses related to their research interests that are offered by other departments in the University.

In the second and third years, students continue taking courses and write two qualifying papers under faculty supervision. In addition to these major landmarks, students are required to satisfy a non-Indo European language requirement and to pass a reading examination in an additional language other than English. Upon completion of the qualifying papers and course and language requirements and defense of a dissertation proposal by the end of the fourth year students are admitted to candidacy for the PhD; the only remaining requirement is the dissertation.

Application and Admission

Completed applications for admission and aid, along with all supporting materials, are due in mid-December for the academic year that starts in the following Autumn.

Four parts of the application are critically important and should accompany the application: the student’s academic record, letters of recommendation submitted by persons able to describe the student’s achievements and promise, the student’s statement of purpose, which describes the intellectual issues and subjects which they hope to explore at Chicago, and a sample of pertinent written work that demonstrates the applicant’s research interests or capabilities. The sample may consist of published essays, class term papers, or a B.A. or M.A. thesis, or some combination of all of these. The student’s academic record is documented through official transcripts, but applicants are also encouraged to submit as supplemental material an ‘annotated transcript’: a file they create that lists all the courses they have taken which are relevant to graduate study in linguistics, with the grade received, the full name of the instructor, major texts used or studied, and a brief (no more than five sentences) description of the material covered in the course. Such a supplemental file is more informative for judging the preparation of an applicant than is the official transcript.

When completing the application form, it is of benefit to the applicant to be as specific as possible in describing his or her research interests. General comments are of relatively little use; applicants are encouraged to discuss specific linguistic subject matters that they are interested in or have worked on.

If an applicant knows faculty members with whom he or she might work, the latter’s names should be given as well. The faculty of the Linguistics Department would be happy to answer any questions that prospective students may have. Please contact them individually regarding their research or classes, or contact the Director of Graduate Studies for more general or administrative questions. Contact information is available at the Linguistics Department website.

The application process for admission and financial aid for all graduate programs in Humanities is administered through the divisional Office of the Dean of Students. The Application for Admission and Financial Aid, with instructions, deadlines and department specific information is available online at: http://humanities.uchicago.edu/students/admissions

International students must provide evidence of English proficiency by submitting scores from either the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). (Current minimum scores, etc., are provided with the application.) For more information, please see the Office of International Affairs website at https://internationalaffairs.uchicago.edu, or call them at (773) 702-7752.

This course is intended for students with a strong background in phonology. We will explore the major themes of phonological theory from 1870 to today, focusing on such questions as the distinction between phonology and morphophonology, the nature of phonological representations, and the character of hard and soft contraints on phonological representations.

This course can also be taken by students who are not majoring in Linguistics but are interested in learning something about the uniqueness of human language, spoken or signed. It covers a selection from the following topics: What is the position of spoken language in the usually multimodal forms of communication among humans? In what ways does spoken language differ from signed language? What features make spoken and signed language linguistic? What features distinguish linguistic means of communication from animal communication? How do humans communicate with animals? From an evolutionary point of view, how can we account for the fact that spoken language is the dominant mode of communication in all human communities around the world? Why cannot animals really communicate linguistically? What do the terms language "acquisition" and "transmission" really mean? What factors account for differences between "language acquisition" by children and by adults? Are children really perfect language learners? What factors bring about language evolution, including language speciation and the emergence of new language varieties? How did language evolve in mankind? This is a general education course without any prerequisites. It provides a necessary foundation to those working on language at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

This course is an introduction to basic goals and methods of current syntactic theory through a detailed analysis of a range of phenomena, with emphasis on argumentation and empirical justification. Major topics include phrase structure and constituency, selection and subcategorization, argument structure, case, voice, expletives, and raising and control structures.

Instructor(s): Karlos Arregi Terms Offered: Autumn

LING 30202. Syntactic Analysis II. 100 Units.

This course is a continuation of Syntactic Analysis-1. The emphasis will be on A'-movement and ellipsis operations within the framework of Principles and Parameters and the Minimalist Program. Although we will examine different types of movement and ellipsis constructions, as well as their interactions, the objective will be to understand to what extent we can develop a general theory of syntax. The course will have a strong cross-linguistic aspect to it, examining data from Irish, Austronesian languages, Mayan languages, Wolof, Russian, Romance, Germanic, and others. The topics will include wh-movement in questions, relative clauses, and other constructions, islands and other constraints on movement, sentence fragments (sluicing, split questions), VP-ellipsis, and gapping.

This is the first in a two-course sequence designed to provide a foundation in the scientific study of all aspects of linguistic meaning. The first quarter focuses primarily on pragmatics: those aspects of meaning that arise from the way that speakers put language to use, rather than through the formal properties of the linguistic system itself, which is the domain of semantics. However, a central goal of the course will be to begin to develop an understanding of the relation between pragmatics and semantics, by exploring empirical phenomena in which contextual and conventional aspects of meaning interact in complex but regular and well-defined ways, and by learning analytical techniques that allow us to tease these two aspects of linguistics meaning apart.

Instructor(s): Chris Kennedy Terms Offered: Autumn

LING 30302. Semantics and Pragmatics II. 100 Units.

This is the second in a two-course sequence designed to provide a foundation in the scientific study of all aspects of linguistic meaning. The second quarter focuses on the syntax-semantics interface and cross-linguistic semantics. The class will introduce in detail a theory of the way in which the meaning of complex linguistic expressions is formed compositionally from the meaning of constituent parts, and the interaction of semantic and syntactic composition. This theory will form the basis for exploring some empirical questions about the systematicity of cross-linguistic variation in the encoding of meaning.

This is an advanced introduction to the field of psycholinguistics. We will do an in-depth overview of both the empirical findings and the methodologies used on various topics in language comprehension/production, including areas of speech perception, lexical processing, syntactic parsing, and semantic/pragmatic processing. Models at both the computational and the mechanistic levels will also be examined.

Instructor(s): Ming Xiang Terms Offered: Autumn

LING 31000. Morphology. 100 Units.

Looking at data from a wide range of languages, we will study the structure of words. We will consider the nature of the elements out of which words are built and the principles that govern their combination. The effects of word structure on syntax, semantics, and phonology will be examined. We will think critically about the concepts of morpheme, inflection, derivation, and indeed, the concept of word itself.

Among topics discussed in the first half of the sequence are the formal structure of semiotic systems, the ethnographically crucial incorporation of linguistic forms into cultural systems, and the methods for empirical investigation of “functional” semiotic structure and history.

This course deals with the issue of variation and change in language. Topics include types, rates, and explanations of change; the differentiation of dialects and languages over time; determination and classification of historical relationships among languages, and reconstruction of ancestral stages.

An introduction to the comparative study of the Indo-European languages. We will survey the major branches of the Indo-European family and discuss various aspects of PIEgrammar as it is currently reconstructed.

Instructor(s): Y. Gorbachev Terms Offered: Spring 2015

LING 32750. Laboratory Phonology. 100 Units.

This course is intended to provide a foundation for students to pursue the quantitative study of phonology in the context of human interaction, and of speech and perception in the context of language. Specifically, this course focuses on how to design, conduct, and analyze a phonological experiment. We will approach laboratory phonology from the perspectives of both the speaker and the listener, with each perspective constituting roughly half the course. In the process, we will gain and practice skills in experimental phonetic and psycholinguistic work, while testing aspects of current phonological theory.

In this course we will explore methods of research used in the disciplines of linguistics and psychology to investigate sign language and gesture. We will choose a set of canonical topics from the gesture and sign literature, such as pointing, use of the body in quotation, and the use of non-manuals, in order to understand the value of various effective methods in current use and the types of research questions they are best equipped to handle.

In this course we will examine the language of deception and humor from a variety of perspectives: historical, developmental, neurological, and cross-cultural and in a variety of contexts: fiction, advertising, politics, courtship, and everyday conversation. We will focus on the (linguistic) knowledge and skills that underlie the use of humor and deception, and on what sorts of things they are used to communicate.

In this seminar course we will review the “creole exceptionalism” tradition against the uniformitarian view, according to which creoles have emerged and evolved like other, natural and non-creole languages. We will situate creoles in the context of the plantation settlement colonies that produced them and compare their emergence specifically with that of languages such as English and the Romance languages in Europe. We will also compare these evolutions with those of new colonial varieties of European languages (such as Amish English, mainstream American English varieties, Brazilian Portuguese, and Québécois French) which emerged around the same time but are not considered creoles. Using the comparative approach (in evolutionary theory), we will assess whether the criteria used in the genetic classification of languages have been applied uniformly to creole and non-creole languages. In return, we will explore ways in which genetic creolistics can inform and improve genetic linguistics (including historical dialectology).

The field of linguistic landscapes examines the public display of languages, dialects, and writing systems: Who is the author and audience of such messages? Which languages are chosen for official signage? What can we learn about present or past multilingualism? What is conveyed by nonstandard dialect forms or stylized writing? In this course, students will collaborate on creating an online map of Chicago with geo-tagged images. At least three weekend days will be spent on field trips to Chicago neighborhoods.

Survey of research on the interrelation of language, culture, and thought from the evolutionary, developmental, historical, and culture-comparative perspectives with special emphasis on the mediating methodological implications for the social sciences.

Spoken in ten countries of Eastern and Central Africa, Swahili has more speakers than any other language in the Bantu family, a group of more than 400 languages most prevalent in sub-equatorial Africa. Based on Swahili Grammar and Workbook, this course helps the students master key areas of the Swahili language in a fast yet enjoyable pace. Topics include sound and intonation patterns, noun class agreements, verb moods, and sentence structures. Additionally, this course provides important listening and expressive reading skills. For advanced students, historical interpretations are offered for exceptional patterns observed in Swahili, in relation with other Bantu languages. This is a general introduction course with no specific prerequisites.

Instructor(s): Fidele Mpiranya Terms Offered: Winter

LING 38356. Linguistic Introduction to Swahili-2. 100 Units.

Based on Swahili Grammar and Workbook, this course is a continuation of Linguistic Introduction to Swahili-1. It addresses complex issues related to grammatical agreement, verb moods, noun and verb derivation, non-typical adjectives and adverbs, double object constructions, subordinate/coordinated clause constructions, and dialectal variation. Additionally, this course provides important listening and expressive reading skills. For advanced students, historical interpretations are offered for exceptional patterns observed in Swahili, in relation with other Bantu languages.

Spoken by around 18 million in Central and Eastern Africa, Kinyarwanda / Kirundi is one of the most spoken Bantu languages and has the status of an official language in Rwanda and Burundi. Based on a conversation book and a grammar guide, this course integrates speaking practice and linguistic discussion. It will allow the students to understand fundamental structures of Kinyarwanda in various areas. Topics include sound and tonal patterns, noun class agreements, verb moods, and sentence structures. Additionally, this course provides important listening and expressive reading skills. It will allow the students to discover elements of the Rwandan culture and to participate in elementary conversation about everyday life in Kinyarwanda. This is a general introduction course with no specific prerequisites. It allows fulfilling the non-Indo-European language requirement.

This course is a continuation of Introduction to Kinyarwanda I. It integrates speaking practice and linguistic discussion. The students will be able to understand fundamental structures of Kinyarwanda in various areas. Topics include sound and tonal patterns, noun class agreements, verb moods, and sentence structures. Additionally, this course provides important listening and expressive reading skills. It allows the students to discover elements of the Rwandan culture and to participate in elementary conversation about everyday life in Kinyarwanda. This course allows fulfilling the non-Indo-European language requirement.

This course draws on readings in and case studies of language evolution, biological evolution, cognitive development and scaffolding, processes of socialization and formation of groups and institutions, and the history and philosophy of science and technology. We seek primarily to elaborate theory to understand and model processes of cultural evolution, while exploring analogies, differences, and relations to biological evolution. This has been a highly contentious area, and we examine why. We seek to evaluate what such a theory could reasonably cover and what it cannot.

The field methods course is a two-quarter course, taken by graduate students and advanced undergraduates. (Students may elect to take the course more than once.) This course is devoted to the elicitation, transcription, organization, and analysis of linguistic data from a native speaker of a language not commonly studied. Students will also gain practical experience in the use of fieldwork equipment. Language chosen may vary from year to year.

Instructor(s): Amy Dahlstrom, Lenore Grenoble Terms Offered: Autumn

LING 40302. Field Methods II. 100 Units.

The field methods course is a two-quarter course, taken by graduate students and advanced undergraduates. (Students may elect to take the course more than once.) This course is devoted to the elicitation, transcription, organization, and analysis of linguistic data from a native speaker of a language not commonly studied. Students will also gain practical experience in the use of fieldwork equipment. Language chosen may vary from year to year.

Instructor(s): Amy Dahlstrom Terms Offered: Winter

LING 40310. Experimental Methods. 100 Units.

This course will cover the basic methods for experimental studies, including experimental design, data collection and statistical analysis. To demonstrate different design and analysis tools, we will look at data set from different types of studies, including self-paced reading, acceptability judgment, eye tracking, ERP, etc. Students will also gain hands-on experience on different paradigms.

Instructor(s): Laura Cassanto Terms Offered: Winter

LING 40320. Language Documentation: Theory and Practice. 100 Units.

This course covers the theory and methods in language documentation and description, with an emphasis on the role of language endangerment in the field, with discussion and hands-on work involving data collection, annotation, archiving, and presentation of results (including scholarly publications and the production of community-focused materials). Students will work with a native speaker of a lesser-studied language to conduct an actual digital documentation project. (This course complements but does not supplement LING 40301/40302 Field Methods.)

Instructor(s): Lenore Grenoble Terms Offered: Winter

LING 41920. The Evolution of Language. 100 Units.

How did language emerge in the phylogeny of mankind? Was its evolution saltatory or gradual? Did it start late or early and then proceed in a protracted way? Was the emergence monogenetic or polygenetic? What were the ecological prerequisites for the evolution, with the direct ecology situated in the hominine species itself, and when did the prerequisites obtain? Did there ever emerge a language organ or is this a post-facto construct that can be interpreted as a consequence of the emergence of language itself? What function did language evolve to serve, to enhance thought processes or to facilitate rich communication? Are there modern “fossils” in the animal kingdom that can inform our scholarship on the subject matter? What does paleontology suggest? We will review some of the recent and older literature on these questions and more.

This seminar explores a range of topics in the syntax/semantics interface, including (a) clause structure and argument structure (including ditransitives, active/passive/middle voice, deponents, and the morphology of the verb); (b) negation, negative polarity, and negative concord; (c) temporal and aspectual morphemes and mood particles; (d) the internal structure of quantifier and noun phrases (QPs, DPs, and NPs): genitives, adjectival modification, definite reduplications, nominalizations, and partitive structures; (e) wh-structures: questions, relative clauses (including free relatives), and comparatives; (f) elliptical structures, and code-switching. The language focus will vary, though we will have as a goal the development of a considerable understanding of these issues in modern Greek in particular, but with attention to Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Albanian, Hungarian, and other languages as participant interest and expertise indicate.

This course deals with a variety of topics specific to Linguistic Pedagogy.

Terms Offered: Autumn,Spring,Winter

LING 47900. Research Seminar. 100 Units.

The course aims to guide students on their research in a structured way and to present professionalization information crucial to success in the field. The course is organized largely around working on the research paper, with the goal of making it a conference-presentable and journal-publishable work. Topics covered include abstracts, publishing, handouts, presentation skills, course design, creating and maintaining a CV, cover letters, webpages, and in general everything that is required for you to successfully compete for jobs in linguistics.

Instructor(s): Karlos Arregi Terms Offered: Autumn,Winter

LING 52400. Seminar: Phonology. 100 Units.

Please visit the Linguistics website for course topic and description

Instructor(s): Jason Riggle Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): LING 30102 or instructor's consent
Note(s): This course has a different topic each quarter it is offered.

The plethora of handbooks, encyclopedias, companions, etc. (not to mention journals and book series) for what is captioned “linguistic anthropology” – notably overlapping with what is termed “sociolinguistics,” though not of the variationist coloration – has now been joined by a number of teaching texts, most recently one from Cambridge University Press. What, actually, are these texts introducing to undergraduates in the way of a presumed (sub)discipline that has reached a clarity for codification as an area of study? What topics are “in”; which possible others are overlooked or neglected, perhaps the subject matter for other pedagogies? Do these treatments each cohere in some discernible conceptual framework from which derives a narrative about the sociocultural life – and meta-life – of language? Is there an intellectual periodization revealed in the longer intellectual trajectories of what have become related and intersecting/diverging self-conscious “disciplines” dealing with language—culture—social formations—mind—etc.? What seems to become of “linguistic anthropology” when this area of research and publication is turned into the focus of an elementary teaching text?

(Topic: Learnability) Two of the motivating problems of linguistics are how people use language, and how we learn to use language. The standard approach to these problems is to postulate an abstract knowledge of language (competence) which gets used or learned (performance). But how could a performance system actually work -- how could the descriptions linguists write be brought to bear on the above motivating problems, or vice versa? This course will focus on the problem of language learning, in particular from the perspective of inductive inference (PAC and Gold paradigms, and variants). These paradigms concentrate on the question of how a learner generalizes from the data, and investigate the conditions under which generalizing in this way will be successful. Accordingly, these paradigms allow for a deep connection to be made between linguistic typology and learning theory. We will look at examples inspired by phonology, syntax, and semantics, depending on the interests of the participants. A previous course in formal methods (such as Mathematical Lingusitics) would provide a helpful background.

Instructor(s): Greg Kobele Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course has a different topic each quarter it is offered.

LING 60000. Reading and Research: LING. 100 Units.

This course is an independent study under the guidance of a faculty advisor, indicated by the section number. Please consult with the faculty member in question before enrolling.

Linguistics - Modern Greek Courses

This course is designed to help students acquire communicative competence in Modern Greek and a basic understanding of its structures. Through a variety of exercises, students develop all skill sets.

MOGK 30100. Elementary Modern Greek I. 100 Units.

This course aims to develop elementary proficiency in spoken and written Modern Greek and to introduce elements of cultural knowledge. The course will familiarize the students with the Greek alphabet, Modern Greek pronunciation rules and the basic morphology and syntax, with an emphasis on reading and conversational skills. The students will be able to communicate minimally with formulaic and rote utterances and produce words, phrases and lists.

This course aims to develop elementary proficiency in spoken and written Modern Greek and to introduce elements of cultural knowledge. The course will familiarize the students with the basic morphology and syntax, with an emphasis on reading and conversational skills. The students will be able to handle a variety of tasks and manage an uncomplicated situation using mostly formulaic and rote utterances. They will also be able to express personal meaning forming paragraphs.